HEADS UP: I'm talking about nudity, questions of social mores surrounding the exposure of the human form, and including illustrative pictures that could be construed as being inappropriate, particularly if you're of the younger variety. If any of what I mentioned here might bother you, I recommend you skip this one.
Going Gaga
In 2013, I went to Paris for the first time. While there, I went to the Louvre and looked at some of the most incredible artwork the Western world has created. I saw
The Mona Lisa, enormous paintings by Jacques Louis David, and many other impressive, indescribable pieces--artwork that I'd only ever read about before.
As I was bopping through the museum (as one does), there was an advertisement for a new, small exhibit by Lady Gaga. The ad had a person, lying in a bathtub, in the pious pose of
The Death of Marat by David. I remember wondering what I was actually looking at, since, from a distance, it simply looked like someone had put together
Death of Marat in photography instead of oils (so what's the big deal?), but then it became clearer: It was a female model. In fact, it wasn't an exhibit
by Lady Gaga, but, rather,
of Lady Gaga.
That meant that the topless form wasn't of the martyred Marat, but of Gaga herself. I knew that Europe, in general, has a more relaxed take on women being topless, but I was still surprised, in part because it seems (from my passing, not terribly deep knowledge about the artist herself) that Gaga is usually more interested in teasing her nude form, rather than explicitly showing it. But, yes, Gaga it was, set in an almost perfect recreation of the painting.
It turns out that Gaga did a number of different recreations of other famous artwork, as pictured here.
 |
| The ad I saw is the top right, in case my descriptions were too vague. The image was originally posted on this guy's blog. |
But what I want to talk about isn't the fact that she made the art--whether or not it's in good taste, worthwhile, or significant--but instead about one detail that is hard to parse out from the images here: Her left breast.
It's difficult to tell in all of the online reproductions I could find, but in person it was pretty clear that the trademark Gaga censoring tape (large white X's across her nipples) was definitely there. Now, perhaps it's because that was the ad for the piece, while the actual artwork was unedited, and so I can't actually get to that image online, but I remember being almost as shocked at the X on her chest than Lady Gaga was imitating
Death of Marat.
Atomizing Art
What really got me thinking was, aside from the sexist double standard that women must always be covered (so much so that public breastfeeding is often viewed with scorn), was how censorship--personal, societal, and most perniciously, governmental--poisons the art that's being created.
I'm not saying that, because something is art, it's automatically "good" or "wholesome" or ought not to be carefully considered. Indeed, I think art is meant to challenge those willing to be challenged--and, in some cases, comforted--by those in the necessary state of mind. Additionally, I don't want to wander down concepts of obscenity or pornography, both of which are likely overcharged with moral terminology that is worth exploring...just not here.
Instead, I'm curious about
why we, as a culture, are so threatened by female nipples.
Example 1: I was flipping through DeviantArt one night, on the lookout for cool images to add to my portfolio of inspirational pictures, when I saw this drawing by
PreciseMoon:
 |
| He's a djinn, according to his creator. |
There's a "mature content" filter on the website, so full-fledged nudity is blocked (though that doesn't mean there isn't a lot of eyebrow raising photos and drawings on the website), and so I was surprised to see Nidal here, standing around without a whole lot of clothing on. Then I realized that, despite the slender cheekbones, the thick eyelashes, and the curve of the hip, this djinn was a male. He, like so many men, are allowed to show off their bare chests without it being considered indecorous or indecent.
Due to many factors, I feel as though I'm trained to react a particular way when nipples are shown, and if there's a guess that they're part of the female anatomy, I'm supposed to cycle through interest, embarrassment, shame, and aversion--usually in that order--while at the same time trying to ascertain if what I'm looking at deserves this checklist. There's probably even more going on inside, but the larger point that I'm after is that there's a definitive reaction to a picture like Nidal, much of which is conditioned based upon social mores that suffer from a startling lack of parity.
Take, for example, Example 2: Flipping through other offerings on the website, I came across this one, which made me think (again) the content filter had failed:
But, no, actually, it's a pale woman wearing a pale one piece (not even a bikini), yet I had the same reaction to her pose as I had to the djiin and to the Gaga portrait, checklist included. Growing up in Utah County, as well as being a Mormon, I've had a pretty deep sense of propriety when it comes to what should and what should not be exposed on people. Aside from prohibitions from premarital sex, I grew up avoiding even looking at anything that was considered "inappropriate"--even if it was art.
Strangely, things like
David by Michelangelo were okay--likely because I'm a guy (which is also strange, considering how condescending my community is about
homosexuality same-sex attraction)--though not something I personally thought was particularly impressive. I'm more and more in awe of Michelangelo's ability now that I'm older, but as a youth, I would likely have put some boxer briefs on him.
 |
| Taken from Wikipedia. It'd be cool to say I've seen it in real life, but, alas...not the case. |
Putting aside how I was raised, there's something weird about how we (again, culturally) view the human body, specifically the female body. To write this essay, I spent a lot of time looking at different images of classical work, trying to piece together what I'm trying to say, and I kept going back to the incongruity of this:
 |
| I took this picture of Venus, meaning I saw it in real life. |
with this:
 |
| Eva Green as a send off to the Venus, taken from this site. |
The incongruity is that one is...made of marble and the other is a human being, I guess? I really don't understand why one would be considered high art and the other not. In other words, if someone were to release a milieu with models in classical poses, I don't think I'd be seeing it in any classrooms anytime soon, but we can take students on field trips to art museums with the same milieu but painted on a canvas, no problem. Another way of phrasing this is that this picture doesn't illicit the same responses as...
 |
| I love that this piece comes from Dante's Inferno. Photo. |
...this.
 |
| That is a cool tattoo. Credit. |
Lines of Difference
Here's the thing that really puzzles me: The media are different (marble versus digital), but they're both representing, celebrating, and responding to the same idea (in this case and among other things, the art that came before it). If it's the idea that the
medium for the art matters so much, then why is photography considered "too far" (I suppose?) for what we ought to allow in terms of human representation?
The same skill set for photography--including posing, lighting, shutter speeds, and more--isn't really in the toolbox for sculpting. Conversely, chisels, hammers, and sponges don't pertain to photography, yet are crucial for the sculptor. Both require immense amount of effort, both seek to find a new angle at looking at life--both seek to capture and distill it within their various media. But if it's a sculpture or painting of a woman's breast, it's high art. If it's a
celebrity protesting post-production digital manipulation of her body, it's NSFW. This is rooted in sexism, of course, as well as the objectification of women and the way that men hate the same happening to them (see: Almost any online comment from a man about the sexuality of Edward Cullen). There's probably even an argument for mistrust or misunderstanding about the female body that pushes this problem deeper. That all seems like sublimation, though: Why, particularly when it comes to art, do we have a problem with women's breasts?
Bucks for Bodies
I understand that they've been sexualized and fetishized, but I think it's also important to understand that they've been commodified, too. I worry that the reason for the perpetuation of the sexualization of the woman's body--that is, the idea that any aspect of the woman's body is exclusively designed for sexual arousal--comes about because there's a pecuniary motive behind it. Few people would be scandalized by Chris Hemsworth in the Marat send up, but because it's a woman exposing her breast, there's a level of scandal that's actually independent of the artwork that Lady Gaga is trying to portray. That scandal is presaged through many other moments in our cultural legacy, including the "wardrobe malfunction" of Janet Jackson many years back. If Justin Timberlake's shirt had torn and exposed his chest, there would be no need for a phrase like "wardrobe malfunction", in part because the market, as it were, of seeing Timberlake's bare chest was already saturated.
 |
| Much like his skin is looking saturated. Credit. |
Especially in the pre-Internet age, a glimpse of a woman's chest was a pay-to-view proposition. Even non-sexualized versions, like the National Geographic articles about aboriginal tribes, required some financial output in order to catch a gander. The business models of the past still strive to be pertinent now, and in many ways, they continue to work as they always have. One of the things that has continued is that when advertisements dunk their ads in the sex bucket (to quote a favorite professor), the man's chest can be seen, but the woman's is always kept carefully out of view: To tantalize without allowing full exposure.
 |
| I couldn't find one that wasn't in some way sexual, so this is the best one I could get (found here). |
There's money to be made in this, though admittedly the hyper-sexualization of the female models in a lot of the advertisements is its own problem. Indeed, that is the logical capitalistic pressure on morality. By providing a financial link between body shaming, body exploitation, and body double-standards, people have proven that they're willing to (literally) buy into models of arbitrary differences that have further implications beyond what is being sold.
I feel like the artificial boundaries between acceptable nudity in art (statues and paintings if they're old enough (I guess?) but not artistic photographs of a celebrity's chest) generate sexualized, hyper-sexualized, and pornographic depictions that are, if not harmful, certainly degrading and can lead to a continued objectification of women.
It should also be noted that women of color are even more vulnerable to this kind of objectified exploitation, very often utilized as "exotic" or doubly forbidden--racism, of course, still residing deeply within the American psyche--and greater harm lies that way. Because racism is an additional layer, one built upon creating the Other out of real life human beings, women of color face an even greater obstacle of overcoming the objectification that our culture generates. If you're curious what the experience of being a Black woman is like, check out
Dark Girls and see how deeply broken our perception of beauty is.
Unraveling the Truth
In the end, I don't know if I've come up with an answer as to why Gaga is strategically censored and Marat is not. On a personal level, I'm baffled by the issue. Unable to resolve what's going on in my mind, it makes it very difficult for me to enjoy the artwork I see, struggling to figure out if what I'm looking at is the kind of art that ought to challenge me (like RapidHeartMovement's thoughtful self-portraits, many of which explore what I'm discussing here) and what's moved into the exploitative world. I know that there is some subjectivity there, and since I'm rather prudish, I tend toward the more puritanical approach (rather than letting everyone run around topless, why not have the men cover up again?). This only complicates matters, because I can see some things as being innately beautiful without them being sexual, but some things that I would argue
are sexualized may not be by a more sophisticated art critic.
Despite my obvious skirting of sexual response and arousal throughout this piece--done because I don't know how to parse those types of feelings--there's likely a lot to unravel there, too. But this essay has gone on long enough.
Well, I guess the question of artistic nudity is one more area where I will have to keep thinking about until I can get to the truth of it.
